here be sisters. I thought I'd put up some more pictures to let people know I'm not opposed to them.

No I didn't take the picture, but I think it's my favorite family photo since Sarah pinched Jospeh while we all posed in our sunday clothes.

Two in one day, you lucky duck

Yes, here I am blogging again. I'm stuck at my dad's office and have already played with all the neat toys he has on his desk.

So my Brazillian friend from my mission went home today and though Stephen and I are back the the grinding wheel we feel so releaved that we no longer have to pretend to be interesting. sigh.

It was strange as we took him around. Both me and Mr. Brazillian friend when trying to think of things to do, naturally thought of places that would be good pictures.

Since when have vacations been about pictures? I'd like to think it was since facebook, but somehow I think it was earlier than that. Now, don't let this have you think I'm opposed to pictures, no, I wish there were more and personally think blog posts without pictures seem quite lonely, I just think it's funny that we spend thousands of dollars to go somewhere else to take pictures when people are spending thousands of dollars to get where we are to take pictures. For who? For memories? If memories, then false memories. We don't expereince life like a camera shot, thank goodness.

kind of like testimony meeting

Does this happen to you? You don't want to bare your testimony and walking to the front of the chapel seems all too daunting so you just stand up. That's what I do. I stand up, and since I've never seen anyone just sit back down after having the nerve to stand up, I make my way to the front also unwilling to sit back down. I suppose there's something like that with a blog. Sometimes I really don't have anything to say, but I'm sick of all my old postings and hate it when people never update their blogs and so to avoid hypocrisy, I open up a new post and since I'm already thus far, I write.
the end.
me

I just checked my blog and realized I had left it half changed. I'm sorry I was messing around with the background and forgot to finish. Anyway I also can't change the color of the text for the posting below. sigh. If you want to read it you might have to highlight it.

Anyway life is pretty exciting at the moment. The last two days we were in the land of Salt Lake trying to pretend that school does not exist. Just to let you know, it does. We have a member from my mission visiting for the next couple days. Stephen and I might actually get out of our usual holes of the grad lab and the SWKT basement and see what Provo looks like. It's all I can do to keep my dad from trying to show him "Bukaroo Bonzai of the 8th Dimension" or "Evil Roy Slade".

Oh and by the way, no one get your hopes up to high for leprosy. The red spot has been fading and almost matches the blinding white of my leg now. sigh. it was a nice Akbar while it lasted.

Better than a parasite

So that red spot on my leg that I displayed a couple months ago as a parasite was not a good ole parasite. I can't believe I even wasted one of my future kid's names (Akbar) on something that was not even eating my flesh and nutrients. I know, very lame, a parasite is so fancy and is an obvious sign of an adventurous and holy missionary. Sigh, anyway I got a biopsy from the health center, but they gave some silly answers, and so my favorite dermatologist took a biopsy and sent it out to a dermapathologist in Salt Lake.

This was her great reply:

"The findings could certainly be those of a deep gyrate erythema. Because lymphoid cells are seen around a single nerve, one would also need to consider the less likely possibility of borderline leprosy. The lack of epidermal necrosis and papillary dermal edema argues against polymorphic light eruption. The lack of basement membrane zone changes or interstitial mucin argues against lupus erythematosus. Clinicopathologic correlation is advised. "

Okay if a parasite means you were a good missionary, doesn't leprosy mean you were an angel missionary?
So the likelihood of it being leprosy is practically non existent because you usually need to be around someone for years with leprosy before you get it, but that didn't stop me from talking to Stephen in a serious face and telling him that I got the results back from my biopsy and . . . I have leprosy!!!

Actually it is probably a deep gyrate erythema which isn't even cool. In fact it is just boring, but perhaps boring is good if I want to live, which . . . once finals are over, I just might want to do.

tata

Eye color calculator

http://museum.thetech.org/ugenetics/eyeCalc/eyecalculator.html

According to this calculator Stephen and I have a zero chance of having brown eyed children. Really? Zero??

too perfect

Sometimes I think I've learned more in heated debates and observations in the grad lab, than in any class I've taken. Oh how I will miss my grad lab conversations when this semester ends and some of my favorites will be defending their thesis and moving on. sigh.

One of the guys in the lab just shared this great video that just touches on so many of my soap-box issues I had to share with all of you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD-c6cx98ls

p.s. this is the edited version. Listen to the words, they are a little more blunt than I usually listen to, but pertinent to most issues in sociology.

Thesis change?

Perhaps because I hate it when people don’t update their blog or because I’m bitter that it was mentioned in the Priesthood session and not that general session that we shouldn’t waste our time doing blogs when we have more important things to do, but I have decided to write another blog post. jk. I just thought I'd write.

So can I tell you my new idea for my thesis? My past idea hasn’t been working out so well with logistics. The problem is that I was planning on studying the meaning individuals hold with the home, how they dealt with modernity in how they constructed home. I was planning on spending hour after hour this summer interviewing, transcribing, and analyzing the rich data I would gain from bugging dear kind people. Problems?

· I have become a hermit since my mission and find interviewing people terrifying, especially perfect strangers.

· People would probably feel pressured to clean their houses when I was coming, and I would hate to encourage any of that.

· IT would take FOREVER in sandlot sort of forever way.

· Mormon living rooms all look the same.

Solution?

Do a content analysis of blogs, the new virtual living rooms, which may give me more information than a grand tour of an entire house. Also, I could gage my analysis and findings with a my blogging friends (you guys) and get your reaction to any findings.

· I can do it without talking to anyone, and if I do decide to, it can be through e-mail.

· I am not limited to gathering data from Mormons only because internet allows me to reach all sorts of kinds of blogs.

· An excuse to read people’s blogs.

I haven’t yet passed the idea by my thesis committee, and quite frankly I’m worried if it will fly. I don’t’ know if I should continue to look for effects of modernity such as multiple identities, individualization, or habits of consumption. I could also take a completely different method of analyzing the blogs for hyper-domesticity as a reaction against feminism, or expressions of emerging adulthood.

It’s hard to say, and I’m still not sure if this idea would bore me to death in the end or if I would like it.

I thought I’d throw the idea out there.

The end.

me